THIS ISN’T ME NOW V. 19

This isn’t me, or us now. It’s pretty things on autopilot to distract, but I can’t let it ride without saying my piece, as my grandmother would say.

Me now: asking how I can help.

Imagine how crazy and pent up and trapped you’ve been feeling at home the last two months, being told by the government, if you accept it as yours or not, that you can’t do this and you can’t do that, and if you do, it all has to be done by certain rules that sometimes feel arbitrary and always feel out of your control.

Now, if you’re not black, try to imagine hundreds of years of that. Slavery started in America in 1619, when the privateer The White Lion brought 20 African slaves ashore in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia. The crew had seized the Africans from the Portugese slave ship Sao Jao Bautista.

I feel uncomfortable assuming how black people feel – I can only imagine. But it’s time for white people tell other white people to get a grip and see that their privilege requires a hierarchy by definition, and by virtue of ranking, someone is lower than someone else. By expecting those you oppress to act as if they are not being oppressed, and somehow even better, is guaranteed disappointment.

I’m holding you back, I’m keeping you down – by refusing to accept where you came from, but I’m asking you to live like me, because only my experience is comfortable to me, thereby safe. So don’t scare me – stop acting the way you do, and more like the way I do.

Tons of sense.

A few weeks ago, I read about this shitshow that went down in Charleston with a nail salon, a local jeweler who was selling her product in the nail salon, and a Southern Charm cast member. The texts exchanges between these women that were shared are really somethin’, particularly this one, where a local real estate agent told the jeweler: ‘I guarantee you that I am smarter than you, more successful than you, and will always be several steps ahead of you. I didn’t even know a thing about your business until it was pointed out to me. You are a nobody. MAGA.’

Not ok girl. Not how smart people talk, not how successful people actually sound.

What the literal fuck in that context does MAGA even mean? Not great = ______? Great = ______.

There are all sorts of obvious guesses what MAGA really means (it’s the again that really sends this whole thing in a spiral), but big picture, I suspect that not great = afraid, great = safe. And that’s fine! We all want to feel safe, and not afraid, including racists. What’s hopeful is that freedom from fear is totally possible – if you really examine what you’re afraid of, and why. That takes education, curiosity, empathy, long-sightedness and human decency. That sounds pretty GREAT.